Blogger's Chess: My 10th Move

I don't understand, Rook. The diagram shows no passed Pawns. A passed Pawn has no enemy Pawns ahead of it on its file or on an immediately adjacent file.

Great diagrams, btw. They have good colors and they're very easy to see, the best diagram system that you've used so far.

Carl: I had a chance to take the pawn now at c-4 several moves back, but chose not to. I think that's what Rook means by "passed pawn." At the time, I had my sights set on bigger game, and letting his pawn slide led to a short-term payoff for me.

Right now, though, he has the clear advantage toward the center of the board. So, I need to think about how to make my next move...

Jim, from my safe and secure kibitzing spot I would say that that C-Pawn of Rook's, rather than being "passed," is "charmed," as in "leading a charmed life."

Usually that "Sicilian Pawn" of Black's never gets that far. It is supposed to stay on its 4th rank so it can deal with White's slightly more valuable Q Pawn, and if necessary to be exchanged for it, should it advance to its 4th rank. But you guys have taken things somewhere else -- a mark of Rook's always interesting play, and you seem to be into the same thing, playing-wise as well as verbally. :)

I started playing chess a quarter-century ago, Carl, and I gotta tell ya... learning it was easy as pie, but I'll be damned if I'll ever come close to mastering it. The nature of this friggin' game never ceases to amaze, confound, anger, and delight me. Chess isn't so much a game as it is a form of art. Possibly a black art -- sometimes I think Lucifer himself invented it. Then again, I'm a press operator by trade, and I have it on good authority from the Roman Catholic Church that Lucifer invented the printing press, too. So perhaps I have an eternity to beef up my chess skills to look forward to.

For now, though, I have to make my next move. Here it is: Queen d-1 to e-2. I don't really love this move, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do...

Jim, I started playing chess back in the 1940's, yet I never came close to any sort of mastery. But I've never thought of it as the work of Lucifer. It's a miracle instead to me. It's a great wonder how, with just six kinds of men and a playing area of only 64 squares, it can nevertheless have such an almost infinite variety of situations that very often defy general principles, memory, repetition, styles, logic, common sense, virtue, luck, destiny, the expanding universe, and just about everything else that makes any sense.